Its nearly all over. This years Edinburgh Film Fest has shown a record number of new movies. Many good, many not so good. So how do you honour the best of the fest? With an awards show of course! And what awards show would be complete without Screenkicker being there? Well, pretty much all of them but that didn’t stop me showing up to add a touch of class to proceedings. After arriving we took our seats in the big screen in The Film House and a guy that’s off the TV who’s name I can never remember (journalism!) came out and introduced the awards. Here’s what won:

 The Award for Best Documentary Feature Film

This was won by Director Farida Pacha for the documentary My Name is Salt. Its a doc about the families who travel to the desert in Gujerat, India to work for months extracting salt from the ground. And you thought your life was tough.

 

The Award for Best International Feature Film

Ice Poison (Bing Du) won this one. It tells the story of a young in Myanmar who becomes a drug runner to make a living. Not quite as bad a job as working on salt plains in India but not ideal either. Ice Poison is directed by Midi Z who was also nominated for the ‘Name most like a new Sony phone’ award (citation needed).

 

The Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film

A hotly contested award, this went to stalwart of British cinema Eddie Marsan for his performance in the film Still Life. Marsan plays council worker who’s job it is to track down and deliver the news to families of people who have died in their homes. Now that job in the salt mines doesn’t sound so bad.

 

The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film

The big one of the night, and a hugely prestigious award for any filmmaker. The award went to Joanna Coates for Hide and Seek a worthy winner who I’m excited to see more from in the future. I spoke to Joanna after her win where she was getting mobbed by autograph hunters and she had this to say:

Me: So have you gone all Hollywood now that you’ve won a major award?

Joanna: (Laughs) I’m three inches taller now, and my teeth have gone really white!

Me: Do you usually get autograph hunters tracking you down?!

Joanna: (Laughs, I must be hilarious!) No, I don’t think many directors do, it’s nice.

Congratulations to Joanna on that well deserved win and look out for her in the her upcoming role as director of Transformers 5. If you’d like to read more from Joanna then check out my interview with her and her husband and co-writer Daniel Metz here or check out the winning film’s website hideandseekthefilm.com.